October 1st: “Water Communion”An indigenous social activist from Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchú says, “I am like a drop of water on a rock. After drip, drip, dripping in the same place, I begin to leave a mark, and I leave my mark in many people's hearts.” We will celebrate the power of water and our own powers to create and to destroy. Bring water from your home to be shared.

Cynthia Snavelylives in Hayes, VA with her son-in-law, who is currently stationed at Fort Eustis, her daughter, and her four grandsons. She serves the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in New Bern, North Carolina part-time, spending eight days a month on site and working remotely at other times in the month. She is a graduate of Lebanon Valley College and Drew Theological School.

October 8th: “Creation Care”Understanding God's love and care for creation grounds us in our response to be stewards of all creation. Climate change in effecting all creation and requires us to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Huntington Mennonite Church has enacted a Creation Care Energy plan to help care for creation and our future families.

Russell DeYoung was a senior research scientist in the Science Directorate of NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA. He received a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1970 and a Ph. D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois 1975. He is a member of Huntington Mennonite Church, Newport News where he helps lead the church on creation care.

October 15th: “Loving the Other”We live in a society where we have problems with the “Other”, those who don’t share our culture, language, political views, or religious beliefs. But they are our neighbors in the beloved community. Biblical scriptures ask us to “Love our Neighbors as ourselves, however at times we find it difficult to do. In these polarizing times that we live in, how can we find within ourselves to love the “other”?

Rev. Sherman Z. Logan, Jr., currently serves as the Executive Minister for the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond, Virginia. An ordained Baptist minister, he joined the staff of First UU in 2008, as the Business Manager. While serving as Business Manager, Sherman started the process of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister and was granted preliminary ministerial fellowship (plural standing) in 2014. He is married to his” soul-mate” Franka, and they are proud parents of five children, five grandchildren, and two dogs.

October 22nd: “The Dred Scott Case and White Supremacy in Abraham Lincoln's America”In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared in the infamous Dred Scott decision that African Americans were not citizens and did not possess any rights that white people were bound to respect. This Supreme Court case ignited a political firestorm in the United States, just as the nation was on the verge of civil war. This teach-in will examine Abraham Lincoln's strong rejoinder to Taney and the Dred Scott decision in which Lincoln expounded a view that all Americans, regardless of color, possessed certain rights and privileges as citizens.

Jonathan White, an associate professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, is the author of several books, a finalist for both the Lincoln Prize and Jefferson Davis Prize, a “best book” in Civil War Monitor, and the winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute’s 2015 book prize. He has published more than seventy-five articles, essays and reviews, and is the winner of the 2005 John T. Hubbell Prize for the best article in Civil War History, the 2010 Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Prize, and the 2012 Thomas Jefferson Prize for his Guide to Research in Federal Judicial History (2010). He is president of the Abraham Lincoln Institute, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Board of Advisors of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia, and the Ford’s Theatre Advisory Council.

October 29th: “Reformation 500th Anniversary”Five Hundred years ago on October 31st (All Hallow’s Eve) a scholarly monk is said to have nailed 95 theses to the doors of Wittenberg Cathedral. His name was Martin Luder (later changed to Luther) and some believe the Protestant Reformation began with his hammer stroke. Our faith has been called the far-left wing of the Reformation, but what is our debt to Luther and his movement?

Jim Sanderson, UUFP president, is a long-time Unitarian Universalist. He has served as chair of the Sunday Services Committee, as UUFP Vice President, and as a Fellowship Circle facilitator. Before joining the Fellowship, Jim served as the locally ordained minister of the Jenkins UU Fellowship in Petersburg and for a decade as chair of the Religious Education Committee at First Unitarian in Richmond. A retired librarian, Jim has a strong passion for UU history, finding much in our past that can inform our present and future.